1 Bridging the Gap between Academia and Food System Stakeholders Charles Francis, Geir Lieblein, Tor Arvid Breland, Edvin Østergaard, Suzanne Morse, Anna Marie Nicolaysen [Norwegian University of Life Sciences, NMBU and University of Nebraska – Lincoln, UNL] Keywords: agroecology, experiential learning, phenomenology, action education Abstract The well-known gap between theory and academic courses at universities and applications of this knowledge in farming and food systems have been identified as barriers to practical development. Production specialists in academia have assumed that focus on increasing crop yields is intrinsically beneficial and will help farmers regardless of scale and need for inputs, including increasingly expensive technologies. Farmers and others in the food system recognize immediate needs and challenges that must be overcome to reach profitable levels of yields and income while not ignoring environmental and social implications of new technologies. There is often lack of communication and shared agenda among the players, including common research priorities, essential questions that address current realities on farms and in communities, and shared long-term visions. A postgraduate educational programme in Norway that explores the ecology of food systems has been designed to lower the barriers to communication by focusing on student learning together with stakeholders and by seeking application of biological and social sciences to improve farming and food systems as well as related activities. Guiding philosophy for the agroecology MSc education program at NMBU – Norway includes whole systems perspectives and phenomenology as guides to learning, which we summarize along with a description of the two-year curriculum in an intensive introductory course. The process includes frequent communication between students embedded in the farm and community with their stakeholders. We combine individual with social learning, integrate biophysical with socioeconomic sciences, and apply a team approach to building human capacity to understand complexity and uncertainty in food systems. One outcome is development by student teams of a series of potential future scenarios that will help stakeholders achieve their own goals. Over the past decade, more than 230 students have participated in this holistic educational activity, and there is growing demand for this type of learning experience in the Nordic region and elsewhere. Keywords: agroecology, experiential learning, phenomenology, action education 1 Introduction There may be a larger gap between knowledge and action than between ignorance and knowledge in agricultural development. This is displayed in the proverbial gap between academia and stakeholders, in our case farmers and food system practitioners. When we recognize that there is currently enough food produced globally to feed everyone, but large inequities exist in access and distribution and there is at least 30% of food loss in the total system, the simplistic goal of producing more food is unlikely to solve the hunger faced each day by more than one billion people [IAASTD, 2009]. It would be equally simplistic to quickly conclude that researchers are working on the wrong problems and teaching in disciplines that are too narrow, and that discipline-specific research and education are no longer needed. Neither